Topical Tropes

These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.

For the 2011 TV series:

Abandon Shipping: A fair portion of the fandom is completely okay with the Allison/Isaac and Scott/Kira pairings that started happening in Season 3. The same goes for Stiles/Malia and Derek/Braeden in Season 4.

Stiles. He suggests murdering Jackson in cold blood once it's found out that he's the Kanima even though Jackson had risked his life to help save Stiles and his friends before. While this could potentially save many lives, the way this high school student doesn't even flinch at saying such a thing is chilling. Throughout the entire series, he treats people who are not his friends like they barely exist and clearly doesn't value their lives highly. His methods are rather machiavellian, for instance, when he gets Derek to strip without his permission in order to get Danny to trace a text. He also can get quite overbearing when trying to protect people he cares about, to the point of making decisions on their behalf without consulting them first.

Word of God says that Isaac tends to model himself after whatever leader he's following at the time. So when he was following Derek he took on Derek's traits (and Derek was kind of dark himself at the time). When he switched to Scott, he became kinder and more compassionate.

Narrowly defied by Holland Roden, who brought up to Jeff Davis that maybe Peter gas-lighting Lydia and using her as his marionette might influence Lydia's comfort levels when in the same room with him.

Played entirely straight after the events of "Motel California". Scott's suicide is heavily implied to be genuine, Isaac was mindfucked to the point of hiding under the bed in a catatonic state, Boyd hallucinated his dead sister and tried to drown himself, Ethan nearly cut himself in half, and Lydia had to hear the final moments of several of the past suicides in the hotel, and it's never brought up again or have any form of aftermath.

Also Derek. Yes, he's stoic, but given the sheer amount of mental trauma the guy has gone through, he really should be a wreck by now- even ignoring the fact that he gets ripped to shreds physically every five minutes, his near constant loss of agency would be enough to drive anyone to breaking point.

Averted with Liam. After being bitten by Scott in order to save him from a wendigo; he's been kidnapped, poisoned, left in a well to die, nearly immolated, and beaten badly by a berserker. That's just the physical half of it: not being able to tell anyone about his transformation into a werewolf has him feeling isolated, being put on the Deadpool has made him extremely paranoid and the berserker encounter still haunts to nearly PTSD-like levels. Keep in mind that he's still a 15 year old freshman and all of the above-mentioned incidents have occurred in the time-span of less than a month. Arguably, his reaction to everything that has happened makes him the most normal person in the entire setting.

Erica Reyes. She's loved by half of the fandom formany, manyreasons and hated by the other half, for other reasons. Ironically, after her death at the hands of the Alpha Pack and the addition of new characters, a lot of viewers and fans now mourn her departure.

Allison. Some think she is absolved of her actions (kidnapping, torture, attempted murder) during her Heel-Face Turn because of Gerard's manipulations and her mother's suicide. Others think she was too Easily Forgiven for her actions. It doesn't help that most of Scott and Allison's talk during the aftermath of the Season 2 finale was implied to be offscreen.

Derek Hale. Over half of fandom seems to think he's a great guy with good intentions and is just misunderstood by Scott, while the rest either just don't like him or outright hate him for all the things he's done. Including breaking the arm of a known abuse survivor to "teach" him.

Breakout Character: Stiles Stilinski. Started out as the sidekick and comic relief, only to quickly develop into a fan favorite, thanks in no small part to Dylan O'Brien's acting talent, and the Stilinskis' touching and adorable father-son dynamic.

The Nogitsune possessing Stiles, also from Season 3, mentally and emotionally torments him, forces him to torture his friends, and go on constant murder sprees. In its first murder spree, it was summoned by Kira's mother at an internment camp to avenge her American lover, but instead massacres the internment camp, prisoners and guard's alike, before finally being subdued. In the present, he takes control of the Oni and one of the first things he does is kill a girl named Allison. He later leads the Oni on a massacre at the local hospital and police station. In the final showdown, he plans on having Scott kill Stiles, citing it as the only way he can be defeated, simply because it sees it all as a game.

In Season 3A episode "Lunar Ellipse", he breaks through Jennifer Blake's mountain ash barrier to save his and his friends' parents from being sacrificed, becoming a True Alpha in the process.

Scott:I'm an Alpha now.

In Season 4 "Smoke and Mirrors", he breaks free of Kate's Berserker spell and furiously faces off against Peter who planned the whole thing. Then when Peter threatens Liam Scott embraces his true nature and fights back with greater super strength, totally handing Peter's ass to him.

Die for Our Ship: Pretty much anyone who dates Derek or Stiles, but mainly Braeden and Malia.

Draco in Leather Pants: Happens frequently to Peter Hale. He is devious, manipulative, often sadistic, violent and generally only looks out for No. 1, even when he seemingly doesn't. And yet, he is so charming, sexy and witty, that it is really tempting to wonder if he's just misunderstood.

Theo is working with the Dread Doctor and smashes the hand of the man who pretended to be his father because he screwed up a bit when writing a signature. But as he's good-looking and when around the oblivious Pack acts helpful (really pushing them in the direction that he wants them to go), many fans can't bring themselves to hate him.

Kate, despite being borderline sociopathic, is quite attractive. Actually a plot point, given that she sexually manipulated Derek as a stepping stone to her Moral Event Horizon of burning almost all of his family alive.

Peter Hale. Scott's mom certainly agreed on the sexy front, mostly due to being out of the loop on the 'evil'.

The entire Alpha Pack, with Ennis arguably being the only one falling short of looking like a model (he is also the first to die).

Jennifer the Darach. Subverted in that she is using Glamour to conceal her disfiguring injuries and be super-seductive.

Fanon: Although never confirmed in canon, many fans generally accept John as being the Sheriff's first name.

Some fans like to forget that Season 3 and everything after it ever happened, since that means that Jackson, Erica, and Boyd are either dead or forever in London. Add that to the general Base Breaker that is Season 3 and some of its characters (the twins Aiden and Ethan, Deucalion, Jennifer, Malia) or some plot conclusions about Corain general, Derek (and Cora) leaving, Allissac, among other minor ones, and you get a popular point of Fanon Discontinuity. The death of Allison and departure of Isaac at the end of Season 3, total exclusion of Danny in Season 4, and Derek's departure in Season 5 certainly hasn't helped matters, either.

Also, like many other shows, Teen Wolf wasn't very well known during its first season and mostly gained its popular fanbase during the second, so most of the popular fanfiction pieces were written in the ten month hiatus between Season 2 and 3 and therefore accidentally or on purpose ignore Season 3.

Genius Bonus, also Stealth Pun: Stiles's line "Be a Man. Be a Werewolf. Not a Teen Wolf, but a Werewolf." In Old English, from whence the word Werewolf derives, 'wer' means man.

Growing the Beard: Season 1 was mostly the typical "normal teen is now a werewolf" story, but Season 2 slowly moved away from that. By the time Season 3 started, the show had developed a complex plot with a lot of interesting mythology and was trying to become truly compelling television.

Hate Sink: Kate certainly wasn't created with the purpose to gain lots of fans. She initially seems like a Cool Aunt, but her violence and cruelty against werewolves in general, and her later revealed sexually exploitative relationship with teenaged Derek soon turned people against her. According to Kate's actress Jill Wagner it got so bad, that even the crew started throwing things at her when she filmed scenes in Season 1.

The episode in which Scott battles the Kanima in the library came out less than a week after The Amazing Spider-Man, which featured a similar scene. Hell, the Kanima/Jackson himself is an expy of sorts to The Lizard.

Given his ego, Jackson would probably be gratified to know that it took two guys to replace him. His girlfriend and best friend respectively split a pair of identical twins between them after Jackson left Beacon Hills.

Back in Season 1, Derek was furious about Scott howling through the school PA system, late at night, in an effort to attract the Alpha, because he was worried it would "attract the entire state to the school?!". Since then, werewolves and Kanima have fought inside the building (often during the school day!), teachers have disappeared, murders have been attempted, and the locker room has been trashed multiple times. It almost never provokes a prompt response from anybody, even during the daytime when the building is filled with students and faculty!

Jerkass Woobie: Both Isaac and Erica post-transformation thanks to the fact that both are Drunk with Power. Both come from heartbreaking pasts, both decide to lash out the most cruel of ways. This stopped as the series progressed until Isaac completely lost the Jerkass portion and Erica became much more relatable and likable as a character.

Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Stiles. He gets shipped with anyone who's ever appeared on the show. And sometimes those who haven't, too. Whether or not he's even interacted with some of these people on screen doesn't seem to matter, either.

It is less intense with Scott, but due to constant friendly interaction with nearly everyone he is heading this way.

Love to Hate: Kate Argent really isn't a nice person, and especially her treatment of Derek regularly pushes her into Jerkass territory, making viewers wish for her imminent demise, but damn, she has a nice swagger.

Peter Hale is full of bad touch! It'd probably be easier to count the scenes he's in that don't have elements of this. The list includes Scott, Jackson, Stiles, Melissa McCall, Allison, and most importantly, Lydia.

Kate's also pretty skeevy, with her comments on Scott's big brown eyes and... everything about the way she acts around Derek, especially considering their mutual backstory. Turned Up to Eleven when her interactions are with the actually teenaged Derek, played by the rather young-looking Ian Nelson.

To Gerard Argent, this is a daily bridge. See Complete Monster. His definite points of evil so far are threatening to kill Scott's mother, force his son to kill his wife, turn Allison into a perfect replacement for Kate, and beating Stiles half to death. He also essentially started the werewolf/hunter war in Beacon Hills, as we learn in season 3A.

As tragic as Peter's backstory is and how suave he may be, it's hard to get past the fact he killed his niece for her Alpha powers. He may have crossed it in series when he tried to force Scott to kill his friends in Night School.

Narm: The hashtags that MTV puts up in the corner on every important scene in a new episode. They can really kill the mood.

Whenever a werewolf runs on all fours. It looks about as ridiculous as one would expect a human using both their hands and feet to run at a fast pace. The crew seemed to notice given how it got dropped after a few seasons.

Lydia's mother saying "oh honey" when Tracy throws up black murky liquid and a feather. It's delivered in such a fashion, you would think she was comforting a child having a temper tantrum.

Narm Charm: It isn't the best show of the decade by a long shot, but it's fun and somehow still appealing to a fairly large demographic.

One True Threesome: Scott/Allison/Isaac seemed to be headed there in Season 3, especially as they moved into more of a love triangle dynamic during Season 3. Jeff Davis certainly wasn't helping matters by stating that he doesn't like love triangles and making ambiguous comments like "agreed". Then things developed ...differently.

The creators of the series noted that they planned to make a werewolf that someone could kiss, or rather make the werewolf sexy. What they have done is made the werewolf look like the one from The Werewolf Of London from the 1930s. Strangely averted with Aiden and Ethan, who are just handsome guys with red eyes and fangs, but none of the facial swelling or excess hair that Scott and Derek habitually exhibit (probably to save on makeup time and money).

The CGI deer and mountain lion look pretty cheap, while the Alpha resembles a gorilla with more claws and glowing red eyes. The Alpha also looks quite stop-motion-esque everytime it's chasing someone.

At times the CGI can be acceptable, at other times the CGI is painful.

Season 3 episode "Fireflies" has werewolves walking in a dark hallway with glowing eyes... and at times you can see their eyes casting lights in the walls.

Deucalion's "demon wolf" form.

In "Lunar Ellipse", Jennifer uses the shards of glass from the shattered skylight to kill Kali. The skylight was made of an opaque (or at least very dirty) glass. But the shards are all perfectly clear.

When Jackson goes through his transformation into the kanima in Season 2, he hallucinates eating a snake. A few moments later he sees it slither out of his eye.

Season 3: flies in wounds. Just any time bugs show up, really. Somehow, this show made fireflies scary.

There are repeated implications that when Kate slept with Derek, he was young enough for it to be statutory rape. In Season 4, she reverts him mentally and physically to a 16-year-old so he will trust her again and continues manipulating him in a sexual manner, while she's roughly twice his age.

Everyone does the round robin on this one, although the one who's consistently deserving of a hug and a blanket is Isaac. It's to the point where Word of God has essentially made him into a designated Woobie; case in point, when asked if Isaac would be treated not like crap in Season 3, Jeff Davis only response was a snarky, "Where's the fun in that?"

Scott turns out to be a pretty big woobie, after 3A, and particularly "Frayed" and "Motel California", where he nearly dies over the guilt he's been carrying around about everything. Twice.

Stiles has taken this up to eleven after being possessed by the Nogitsune. Being stuck in a basement with a steel trap on his leg as a demonic figure tells him riddles, hallucinating constantly and never quite sure when he's awake or not, having panic attacks in the middle of school, forced to kill and torture people including his friends, and being tricked into thinking he has the same illness that killed his mother. Every tear he cries in Season 3B is like a knife in the heart.

Jennifer Blake's gutting backstory doesn't excuse her actions, but she does get more humanized as a result of it.

Matt as well. Controlling Jackson as the Kanima into ruthlessly murdering others is nothing that can be overlooked but when the victims are revealed to be those who almost let him drown, he doesn't come off as utterly monstrous.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy